On June 9, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Williams v. Pennsylvania that Terry Williams’ (pic­tured) due process rights were vio­lat­ed when Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice refused to recuse him­self from the case. Ronald Castille served as Philadelphia District Attorney before being elect­ed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. As District Attorney, he per­son­al­ly approved the deci­sion to pur­sue the death penal­ty against the 18-year-old Williams, and then, while run­ning for state Supreme Court, tout­ed his record of hav­ing ​“sent 45 peo­ple,” includ­ing Williams, to death row. Nearly 30 years after Williams was sen­tenced to death, and with­in a week of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas heard evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tors had pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny from a wit­ness and with­held evi­dence that it had giv­en favor­able treat­ment to that wit­ness; sup­pressed evi­dence that the vic­tim had sex­u­al­ly abused Williams and oth­er boys; and mis­rep­re­sent­ed to the jury that the vic­tim had been sim­ply a ​“kind man” who had offered Williams a ride home. After the court over­turned Williams’ death sen­tence, Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where Castille was serv­ing as Chief Justice. Williams’ attor­neys filed a motion seek­ing Castille’s recusal, but he denied the motion, refused to refer the ques­tion to the full court, and vot­ed with the major­i­ty of the court to reverse the low­er court rul­ing and rein­state Williams’ death sen­tence. Castille also authored a con­cur­ring opin­ion say­ing the low­er court had stayed Williams’ death sen­tence ​“for no valid rea­son,” attack­ing the judge for hav­ing ​“lost sight of [her] role as a neu­tral judi­cial offi­cer,” and denounc­ing Williams’ coun­sel for hav­ing an ​“obstruc­tion­ist anti-death penal­ty agen­da” and turn­ing post­con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings ​“into a cir­cus where [they] are the ring­mas­ters, with their par­rots and pup­pets as a sideshow.” The U.S. Supreme Court, in an opin­ion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, reversed, say­ing “[a] con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly intol­er­a­ble prob­a­bil­i­ty of bias exists when the same per­son serves as both accuser and adju­di­ca­tor in a case.” Here, the Court ruled, ​“Chief Justice Castille’s sig­nif­i­cant, per­son­al involve­ment in a crit­i­cal deci­sion in Williams’s case gave rise to an unac­cept­able risk of actu­al bias.” It fur­ther deter­mined that Castille’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the case ​“affect­ed the … whole adju­di­ca­to­ry frame­work” of the appeal, and ordered the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to recon­sid­er the appeal. ​“Today, Terry Williams comes one step clos­er to the new, fair sen­tenc­ing hear­ing he deserves,” said Shawn Nolan, an attor­ney for Williams, ​“We’re opti­mistic that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will give this case care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and rec­og­nize the injus­tice of Terry’s death sentence.”

(Williams v. Pennsylvania, No. 15 – 5040, June 9, 2016; Press Release, ​“U.S. Supreme Court Finds Former Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Should Have Recused Himself in Death Penalty Case,” June 9, 2016.) See U.S. Supreme Court and Prosecutorial Misconduct.

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